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Single Idea 10366

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation ]

Full Idea

The main argument for causation being transcendent (rather than being immanent in nature) is that absences can be involved in causal relations. Thus a rock-climber is caused to survive by not falling.

Gist of Idea

Causation transcends nature, because absences can cause things

Source

Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 1.1)

Book Ref

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.5

A Reaction

I don't like that. The obvious strategy is to redescribe the events. Even being hit with a brick could be described as an 'absence of brick-prevention'. So not being hit by a brick can be described as 'presence of brick prevention'.

The 28 ideas with the same theme [causation explained in terms of natural phenomena]:

561 Is there cause outside matter, and can it be separated, and is it one or many? [Aristotle]
1894 Some say that causes are physical, some say not [Sext.Empiricus]
7563 The old 'influx' view of causation says it is a flow of accidental properties from A to B [Suárez, by Jolley]
12497 Causes are the substances which have the powers to produce action [Locke]
8412 A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards [Salmon]
18380 Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong]
8326 Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
10379 Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
8416 Reductionists can't explain accidents, uninstantiated laws, probabilities, or the existence of any laws [Tooley]
8328 Causation isn't energy transfer, because an electron is caused by previous temporal parts [Sosa/Tooley]
8327 If direction of causation is just direction of energy transfer, that seems to involve causation [Sosa/Tooley]
2542 Causation in the material world is energy-transfer, of motion, electricity or gravity [McGinn]
11937 We should analyse causation in terms of powers, not vice versa [Molnar]
8387 A cause has its effects in virtue of its properties [Crane]
14586 Physical causation consists in transference of conserved quantities [Dowe, by Mumford/Anjum]
4787 Causation interaction is an exchange of conserved quantities, such as mass, energy or charge [Dowe, by Psillos]
9493 We should explain causation by powers, not powers by causation [Bird]
10366 Causation transcends nature, because absences can cause things [Schaffer,J]
10377 Causation may not be a process, if a crucial part of the process is 'disconnected' [Schaffer,J]
10378 A causal process needs to be connected to the effect in the right way [Schaffer,J]
10382 Causation can't be a process, because a process needs causation as a primitive [Schaffer,J]
17494 Since causal events are related by mechanisms, causation can be analysed in that way [Glennan]
14563 Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum]
23013 The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller]
23014 If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller]
22608 Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson]
22614 Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson]
22621 Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson]